


Vanish

by MeltingAutumn



Category: Jacksepticeye (Youtube), Markiplier (YouTube), jacksepticeye, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Platonic Friends, Violence, sads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-11 18:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7902529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeltingAutumn/pseuds/MeltingAutumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suddenly, his room is no longer quiet. The lamplight coming from the table gives Mark all the confirmation he needs to know who’s tapping at his window in the middle of the night.</p><p>“Jack?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Even a Well Lit Place

**Author's Note:**

> I’m excited that I get to finally share the story that’s been on my mind for a while. I hope you guys enjoy~

_[3:41 PM] Mark: Everything okay?_

It has been six and a half hours since Jack missed his regular upload schedule, and Mark wasn’t too concerned.

He hadn’t been on skype at all, nor had he been on any social media within the past day. Which, quite frankly, was odd knowing Jack. The guy tended to be a workaholic. Granted, two days prior to then was the last day of PAX, and Jack was probably getting some much needed rest after getting home from his flight. That’s what most of the fans were assuming, by the looks of it. The last thing he had posted on his Instagram account was a selfie of him in the last moments of the convention, standing with fans behind him, captioning it with enthusiasm. It had been a great weekend.

Still, even if he was taking a break, Jack would make sure people knew if his schedule was off. But, mistakes happen, which is why Mark was trying to write it off for bad vibes. He’s probably okay.

_[4:02 PM] Mark: I mean it’s fine if you’re taking a break. we all have those times._

_[4:03 PM] Mark: but it’s odd not hearing any heads up from you._

A lot of fans were trying to ask him where Jack was. Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube Comments… as if he would know the answer. He wanted to respond that he was probably just trying to get back on his feet from the crazy weekend, but when he thought long enough about it, Jack seemed to thrive off of energy. It didn’t seem like he’d take a break without telling everyone. It was just… so unlike him to fall off the face of the internet without warning.

_[8:36 PM] Mark: I just want to make sure you’re okay. Let me know if there’s anything I can do._

_[2:34 AM] Mark: Jack?_

\------------------------------

It’s been two days. Mark can’t sleep.

He tosses again and checks skype on his phone for the millionth time. Nothing. Bob and Wade haven’t heard from Jack either, and trying to reach out to Signe hasn’t proven to be useful so far.

He keeps trying to convince himself that he’s over-thinking things. Jack’s fine. He’s taking a much needed break from the internet.

But there’s another part of him that is raising sirens and red flags. He tries calling him, texting him, skyping him, most social media private messages, anything. After two days of not hearing from his friend, he really starts to worry. This was not like him at all.

He tries getting a hold of Jack’s brother on Instagram. It takes a long time before he receives anything back, but when he does, he feels relief beyond compare to finally hear someone respond to him.

In his messages, he explains the situation. While Jack’s brother admits he hadn’t seen him lately, he promised to stop by Jack’s apartment that evening to check.

Mark thanks him profusely.

\------------------------------

“Twenty-one-year-old Signe Hansen and twenty-six-year-old Sean Mcloughlin, otherwise known as Jacksepticeye online, have been reported missing. Sean is a 5-foot-10 white male, and Signe is a 5-foot-7 white female. The couple was last seen at the convention PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts last Sunday, April 24th. Sean, or Jack as his friends and family call him, has a large online fan-base on YouTube that began to worry after he neglected to post his regularly scheduled videos online. After investigations began, reports suggest that Mr. Mcloughlin and Miss Hansen never made it on their flight back to Ireland, and are-”

Mark turns the Television down a few notches.

He remains on the couch for a bit, his hand holding the remote against his stomach, with his face up to the ceiling. The house around him was quiet, with Chica nudging her nose against his knee, and a small mist of rain couldn’t seem to decide whether it wanted to pour or not. As a result, the windows were fogged, blocking out the muted tapping of the raindrops on his patio. It’s almost eerie, he thinks, while he is unwavering from his position.

Eventually, his hunger gets too much, and he begrudgingly rolls off the couch to sulk into the kitchen. Chica follows with enthusiasm, her tail lashing, but she grows solemn after Mark does not mirror her joy. His feet catch in his sweat pants, arms crossing over his chest to keep himself warm in the house that grows ever colder.

He makes himself some cereal, albeit a little slowly, and sits down at the kitchen table.

Mark stares down into the bowl.

Normally at this hour, he would be filming something. At least, if he wasn’t running behind. But there were a couple ideas for videos he had in the back of his head that he wanted to go ahead and get on camera; he had been itching to make them. The opportunity hadn’t seemed to present itself yet, but it would. Sometime.

Just not right now.

Definitely not until he hears that Jack is safe.

Mark catches himself staring into his cereal too long. He finally forces himself to pick up his spoon and eat.

It tastes stale.

\------------------------------

“-Signe Hansen, recently reported missing as of yesterday morning, was found dead this evening in an alley several blocks away from the hotel she and her boyfriend, Sean Mcloughlin, were staying in while attending PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts.”

Mark finds himself stirring awake on the couch, confused and disoriented. He wasn’t sure how long he was out, nor what time it was, but with a sudden realization, the news anchor’s words processed in his brain, and he sits up.

“She was found with multiple stab wounds in her front, sides, and back, and there are no known whereabouts to her attacker. Her boyfriend Sean Mcloughlin is still missing,” A picture of him shows up on screen, all green hair and smiles, with shining, enthusiastic eyes, “If you see this man anywhere, please contact the number below the screen, and take-.”

Mark doesn’t move at first.

He rises from the couch after he gets the urge to fidget, but he’s not really sure what to do. He feels Chica rub up against his legs, and he absent-mindedly strokes her head.

Instead of trying to think, he opens his phone to call Bob, only to see several missed notifications from several different people all trying to get a hold of him.

He fumbles for Bob’s number in his phone while he paces the room. His friend answers on the first ring, blurting out a: “There you are! I’ve been trying to reach you all night! have you been watching the-” before he stops to hear Mark draw a shaky breath in the background.

“Bob,” He says, his voice broken after not having used it in a while, and he feels his words break slightly as he adds on, much quieter, “what do we do?”

He knows there’s nothing they can do. He knows. But he has to ask anyway.

He hears Bob give a quiet sigh in the background, and then shuffling. “I don’t… I don’t know.” His voice matches Mark’s tired tone.

He expected the answer, but it didn’t stop him from drawing another shaky breath and fighting an audible exhale. His eyes feel like they’re flooding behind his rapid blinking lids. Mark presses his lips into a thin line to keep them from trembling, and avoids the mirror in the hallway when he walks past it, because he knows his composure is gone.

There isn’t anything he _can_ do.

And that’s what he hates the most.

\------------------------------

Tears stain his pillow because he can’t sleep.

He stays up skype-calling with Bob, Wade, Felix, and Ken because none of them can sleep, but really, who can blame them? He’s trying and failing not to get over-emotional, but the conversations are just small talk, and they’re all trying not to talk about the situation, and everything’s a mess, and he misses Jack.

Mark presses his hand over his mouth to control another bout of tears. He’s trying not to upset everyone else in the call more than they already are, but they’re all on the verge of it. Mark’s never been good at keeping poker-faced when something jabs at his gut.

The world feels a bit like it’s spinning around him. He knows he should sleep- knows he should get some energy, but this is the worst part. The waiting. There’s absolutely nothing he can do to help the situation, and he realizes that if he has to pace around his house with the News playing in the background any longer, he’s going to go insane.

He’s waiting for that last bit of information. That last bit of news that will tell everyone that Jack was found dead, just like Signe. Because that’s pretty much the only realistic outcome to this story now.

A couple hours later, he wakes up, confused as to when he even fell asleep.

The skype call had disbanded at some point in the night, as everyone assumedly had gone to bed. There was a single chat message from Bob- “sleep tight guys”- that was sent just after the call was dropped.

Mark closes the laptop and puts it on the table when his ears pick up a tapping noise. After a moment of listening, deathly still, he registers that it had been audible for the past minutes prior to his discovery. It was a constant, irregular thump against a window of his room. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, until they landed on a dark silhouetted man peering into his bedroom from the window.

He inhales sharply with a jump, slipping out of bed and barely catching himself from falling on his face, with his fore-arms bracing his descent into the carpet.

And now he’s starting to panic, the overflow of emotions the past few days catching up to him. He finds tears in his eyes, a quick shallow breath to follow, and his throat close up. He bites down on his fist and looks back over the bed at the window, unable to see who it was due to the glare of his lamp light against the glass.

The tapping had stopped after he fell out of bed. Mark is trying hard not to panic, peering over the bed and reaching for his phone to call the police. He stares for several long seconds at the figure, blood roaring in his ears and his heart about to leap right out of his chest while his fingers find the number pad on his phone. He’s about to dial when, suddenly, something catches his eye.

He freezes in place, staring long and hard, before picking up the shine of green hair on the figure’s head, halo’ed by the streetlight shining far behind him above the streets.

Mark rises from behind his cover, eyes wide, before walking around his bed and unlatching his window. He opens it, feeling the cool night air breeze in and tickle his skin. The sound of crickets become audible, and suddenly his quiet room is no longer quiet. The lamp light next to his bed, which had been on for hours, gives Mark all the confirmation he needs to know who’s tapping at his window in the middle of the night.

“Jack?”

While the lamp confirms who it is, it’s still dark, and Mark can’t see him all too well. When he reaches out an arm to help pull Jack in, and Jack grabs his arm back for a brace, he feels relief flood through him. This is him. He’s okay. He’s alive. Mark squeezes Jack’s arm to assure both of them, and it makes him feel so much better.

He holds out his other arm for Jack to take, helping pull him in through the window. He doesn’t notice how much his friend is leaning on him and using him for support until both of his legs swing over the window ledge and he lets go. The second he does, Jack’s knees buckle and he collapses forward. Mark has half a second of warning before he lurches forward to catch his decent to the ground.

Mark falls to his knees on the carpet, holding a very limp Jack in his arms. He feels like a ragdoll, though much heavier, and he’s still breathing audible gasps as though he were in pain. “Jack? Jack, hey, look at me. Jack.” He tries to capture his attention, all of his relief starting to wash away again. His eyes subconsciously run over Jack for stab wounds, like Signe was found, and his breath catches in his throat at the blood soaked into Jack’s shirt. Mark’s phone is on the other side of the room, and he needs to get it, to call the police, or an ambulance, or _something_.

He tries to lay Jack down on the floor so he could get to his phone, but the Irishman suddenly grabs his shirt in a fist, pulling him back. “Mark.” He rasps out, and chills go up Mark’s arms at how his voice sounds.

“Jack, are you okay? What’s all this blood? Are you hurt? Where’ve you _been_?” Mark asks now that he hears his friend speaking, unable to stop the mountain of questions from spilling onto his friend’s lap. He tries to help him sit up straight.

Jack shakes his head, his pants for breath still causing him to tremble, and Mark fishes out a hand to check his forehead. It’s burning hot. “Not… not hurt.” Jack rasps, his head lolling backwards with sweat beading down the side of his face.

“You’ve got a fever and there’s blood all over you.” Mark states the obvious, only because he needs to hear it out loud. “I’m going to call an ambulance.”

“No!” Jack suddenly is much more awake, grasping onto Mark as though he were a lifeline. “Don’t- don’t. Please.”

Mark frowns. “What? Why can’t I- Jack you’ve been a missing person’s case for days now! Everyone needs to know you’re okay!”

He’s shaking his head again, and he buries his head in Mark’s shoulder, unable to look at him. His skin is burning hot. “They… They think I did it.”

“…What?”

“They think I killed Signe.”


	2. Can Hide Salvation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story’ll be updated every couple days so it’s paced evenly- but the story as a whole is nearly done being written. So you guys don’t have to worry about me dropping it off the face of the earth. Sit back and enjoy!

Three weeks prior to Jack’s disappearance, Mark had woken up covered in blood.

He was disoriented at first. Then again, who wouldn’t be? It took him several seconds to register that he was laying on the floor of his kitchen, back to the tiles beneath him. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans he didn’t remember putting on in the first place, and there were blood stains soaked into the fabrics. There were even specks and splatters on his hands.

This, of course, was something worth concern about, which caused a slight panic within him. When he found the strength to get up (he wasn’t sure why he felt so sore), he checked over himself for any injuries, but found none. He checked over Chica for any injuries, with similar results.

Mark reached back in an attempt to remember what had happened. But after looking at the calender and the time of the day, he realized the last thing he truly remembered doing was editing in the evening prior. There was no reason to believe he was drunk (for obvious reasons), and everything else up until that moment had been a blank.

It worried him. He tried calling friends, asking them what they had been up to that night, to see if he had been with anybody. No one mentioned being with him. Mark wonders if he had hit his head.

Another box falls off the refrigerator, scaring him half to death. Things seemed to be falling a lot around his house lately.

The lights flickered at one point that evening.

He wasn’t sure what to think of any of it.

\------------------------------

“What time is your flight, anyway?”

“Ahh… it should arrive in Boston around… two-thirty that time I think?”

Mark rests his chin on his hand, lost in thought. “That’s cutting it a bit close on my end. I should be able to get there to pick you up around three, I think. Will there-“

Something thumps, causing Mark to stop speaking and turn away from the camera. Jack leans forward, pausing for a moment. “What is it?”

“Oh, hang on a second.” Mark says, standing up from his chair and placing his headphones down gently on the table. He walks off screen and there’s silence, followed by a muffled groan from far away.

When Mark returns to the call and puts his headphones on, he looks pretty mad. “My guitar fell off it’s stand in the corner.”

Jack winces at the thought of an expensive item like that hitting the ground. “Is it okay? Did it scratch?”

“Nah, just startled me. Things have been falling down all over my house lately.” That last part kinda slipped; he hadn’t meant to admit it, but it was too late now. He gestures with his hands, waving them in the general direction of the bathroom, “Nothing beats when the medicine cabinet in my bathroom opened and all the stuff I had in there fell on top me, though. Nearly had another heart-attack.”

Jack’s eyes widen, a half smile growing at the thought. “Dude, is your house like, haunted or something?” He adds on a chuckle.

Mark laughs in response, leaning back a bit in an attempt to calm his own nerves. “Probably. But, eh, I’m good with just rolling with it. So long as this ghost pays his rent and doesn’t make noise after 9:30.”

Jack returns the laughter with a smile, and Mark decides then and there, he was not telling anybody about the incident with the blood.

It had, so far, been the only incident that worried Mark. Nothing that serious seemed to have happened since then. While he still felt a bit rattled, and disturbed was an understatement, nothing else seemed to come of it.

But if something like that happened again, he wasn’t sure who he could trust to talk about it with.

He tries not to think too hard about it, but it’s pretty inescapable.

Alternatives to how the blood got there in the first place just didn’t seem plausible.

 ------------------------------ 

It’s 5:30 in the morning, just several days since Jack had first been declared missing.

Mark is not tired. Jack is very tired.

Jack is sitting at Mark’s dining room table, wearing one of Mark’s loose t-shirts and a pair of sweat pants. It had to be a better alternative than the blood-soaked shirt and jeans he had been wearing for probably days. Jack is wrapped up in a blanket around his shoulders and he has coffee in his hands. He’s staring into the cup as though it were the most interesting thing in the world, often swirling it around gently while lost in his own thoughts. It’s as though Mark isn’t even there to him.

Mark sits opposite of the table, trying to get him to eat. Nothing so far seemed to stay down with Jack’s stomach, but he needed to try.

The silence is broken when Jack mutters a quiet, “Sorry.”

Mark looks up at him, confused. “About what?”

There’s a pause, and Jack shrugs. “Inconveniencing everyone, I guess.”

“Jack.” Mark leans forward on the table. “None of this was your fault.”

Silence. Mark looks down at the food again, and sighs quietly to himself. He wanted nothing more than to tell everyone that Jack was okay, but his friend had been adamant on keeping quiet for now. “They’d trust you, you know. You didn’t kill her.” Mark had said to him.

“I know.” Jack had said in response, and that was the end of that conversation. Neither of them brought it up again. It was mutually agreed to keep quiet for now, even though Jack hadn’t explained everything quite yet.

Mark wanted nothing more than to interrogate him, to know what happened, to do something about it, but he had to remind himself that Jack had just lost someone very close to him. Signe was gone, and there was no way to bring her back. He was undoubtedly in shock at the moment, and Mark knew that feeling all too well.

But the silence is getting to Mark, and he needs to hear Jack speak for his own sanity.

“I’m sorry about Signe.”

Jack lowers his gaze even more, the coffee cup now resting on his legs. His gaze is still infatuated with it. The blanket falls off one of his shoulders, but he doesn’t bother reaching for it. Instead, he sighs to himself. “We were taking a walk.” He says so quietly that Mark almost misses it. There’s a break before he keeps speaking, as though it were painful. “Our flight was scheduled for the morning. It wasn’t too late, we just… wanted to go for a walk. That was it. But then something… happened.”

“Did you see who attacked you?”

Jack looks up at Mark for the first time in about an hour, staring at him for a couple seconds before shaking his head. “No. Something _happened_. I don’t have any memory of half the walk. I remember leaving the hotel, and then shortly after, I woke up in an alley in the middle of nowhere and Signe was…” He swallows, looking away as though the eye contact became too painful. “and I had no idea where we were. My phone was broken, I didn’t have any sense of direction, and there was… so much blood, Mark. It – It was in my clothes, a-and my hair, and my skin…”

Mark witnesses something he rarely ever sees from Jack. Tears start rolling down his cheeks and dripping off his chin, causing ripples in the coffee in his lap. He’s trembling now, his hands shaking so much he has to rest the cup on the table. “And I- I tried to get up and call for help, but when I did, someone came by and, they took one look, and thought I had done it. They were the- they called the police. I tried to explain to them, but I couldn’t move, and suddenly, I blanked out again- and I – I had no idea where I was- I was somewhere completely different, another alley. But when I tried to go for help, I heard the news explaining the story on a TV in a diner next to the alley, and- they called me a s-suspect- but I don’t have p-proof because I don’t remember what happened, and- and-” He draws in a breath and suddenly he’s sobbing, shoulders shrinking in on themselves and his head falling forward. “Oh God, Signe’s dead…”

Two arms wrap around Jack’s trembling form before he realizes that Mark had even risen, and he’s enveloped in a sudden hug. He buries his head in Mark’s shoulder and exhales with an audible cry, putting his coffee cup down and embracing Mark around the middle, grasping him tightly. He’s hiccupping, gasping for breath, and shaking violently. Mark shushes him softly, rocking him side to side in an attempt to calm him down.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” Mark says under his breath, burying his own face into Jack’s shoulder as a form of comfort.

Mark pats him gently on the back, feeling him quake with grief, but he drones his crying out for a sense of déjà vu. Jack had described to him having missing pieces of memory, and waking up covered in blood, just like Mark had experienced just a few weeks prior. As he sits there, listening to his friend sob into his shoulder, his mind wanders.

 _No, this has to be different_. He puts a stop to his train of thoughts then and there. There was nothing similar about someone getting attacked and losing memories. Probably due to head trauma. Mark made a mental note to check Jack’s head for injuries after he had calmed down.

They sit like this for a while, rocking slowly back and forth with the sound of a heavy rainfall in the background, until Jack’s hiccupping and shaking turns into shallow wheezes. Eventually, he stills altogether. Mark realizes, hearing the deep breaths, that Jack had fallen asleep, and he feels a deep sense of relief.

He carries Jack to the guestroom bed downstairs, and tucks him in. His friend doesn’t even stir. Mark wonders how long Jack had gone without sleep, and the idea worries him.

The sun is just rising by the time he makes his way back into the livingroom. His shoulders and neck feel stiff, and he wipes at his face tiredly, but he’s not willing to go back to sleep. So he sits down on the couch and turns on the Television.

The News had many other stories to report, of course, but whenever Jack’s came on, Mark was all ears. Except this time, he wasn’t just labeled a missing person. He was labeled as a suspect.

Wade calls Mark.

Mark doesn’t answer.


	3. A Map to a One Man Maze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning on releasing this later in the week, but I’m too giddy to wait, so here you go! I don’t know how to author note

“Dark.”

The shadowy figure does not turn to acknowledge the new presence. Dark is standing idle in the living room, watching Mark’s sleeping form. “Anti.” He says, his tone sour.

“Why haven’t you been possessing Fischbach?” Anti’s angry. Dark can hear the strain he’s going through, but he isn’t surprised. Taking over a human takes a lot of energy. Anti’s probably very tired. “It doesn’t seem like you’ve been making any progress at all! What have you been doing all this time I’ve been with Mcloughlin?”

Dark gives a half-hearted shrug, giving Anti more reason to rant. “Dark, you know how this works, you either attach yourself to a body, or you’re gone. For good. Get the picture? You can’t fully possess a body until-”

“Until you freak them out enough to lower their sanity. I know.”

“So why have you not been scaring him?”

Dark finally turns to look at his companion, the green eyes burning into his own gaze. “I just… it’s more fun to mess with him, y’know? I started taking him over at first, doing little things like going out and killing animals to get blood on his hands. But it’s way more amusing watching him jump or freak when I knock something over, or flicker the lights. It’s like, it’s really funny Anti, if you could just see the faces this guy makes-”

Anti does the equivalent of a hiss, and the gesture is so threatening that Dark shuts up. “I can’t believe you.”

“Anti, wait-”

The demon begins to pace the living room, gesturing wildly. “I swear, it’s like you want to fade away!” Anti stalks over to Mark, staring down at him with disgust. “I don’t get what you find so amusing about this guy. If you don’t start doing what I’ve been doing to Mcloughlin, you’re going to be erased from the slightest bit of existence you have.”

Dark grumbles to himself, shrugging. “Maybe that’s the way I want to have it.”

Anti looks up so slowly, that if Dark were wearing human skin, he might have shivered. “What did you just say?”

He shakes his head, turning away. “Why don’t you get back to taking over Mcloughlin. I’m just fine with what I’m doing. It’s none of your business.”

Anti narrows his flaming eyes. “I hope you enjoy your disappearance. It _will_ be in vain.”

Dark doesn’t watch him leave the room.

\------------------------------

“Jack?”

There’s a knocking at his door, and Jack rubs at his eyes, sitting up. “Hunh?” He musters out, feeling unusually clean for the first time in days. His clothes don’t stick to him, and the blankets are warm against the chilly morning air.

He sits up as Mark lets himself in, dawning a gentle smile and holding a plate of pancakes. “How’s the fever?” He asks, lacking all eloquence, as he sits himself down at the foot of Jack’s bed. In response, he shrugs, so Mark raises his hand to his forehead to see for himself. “It doesn’t seem as bad as it was this morning. Actually, while I’m thinking about it, can you lean forward for a second?”

Confused, Jack complies, leaning forward while Mark begins running his fingers through his hair. “What are you doing?” He asks under his breath, his voice still a bit raspy.

Mark pauses. He presses down on the side of Jack’s head. “Does that hurt?”

“No?” Jack wants to sit up again.

“How about this?”

“Mark.”

“I’m just making sure you’re not hurt. If you have missing memories, I thought maybe you hit your head or something.”

Well… the answer is satisfying enough. He sighs and allows Mark to keep running his fingers across his head, but he didn’t come up with any results. His back grows sore having to lean forward so long, and he gives a small, impatient huff. When he’s done, Mark sits up again, pushing the plate of pancakes into Jack’s lap and a glass of orange juice into his hand.

“Think your stomach could handle some?”

“I can try.”

Mark pulls his legs up to sit crisscross against the board at the end of the bed, facing Jack while he nibbles at the pancakes. There’s a silence between them, but it’s not unwelcome.

Eventually, though, he brings up the question that had been nagging at him. Jack’s eating the last few bites when Mark decides to speak. “What’s your plan, anyway?”

Jack looks up from his food, with the fork in his mouth.

“Your plan. The end goal. You can’t hide from the police forever. I mean you’re always, always welcome to stay here with me, you know that. But that’s not a definite solution.”

Jack swallows, and he wipes the edge of his lips, crumbling the napkin in his hand. “I’m sorry.” He shakes his head, looking away. “I was hoping I’d start getting my memories back. If I could get any idea of what happened that night, I could trace down who did it, or give the police my side of the story. Somehow. I don’t know, my ideas are a mess right now.”

Mark nods slowly, trying to wrap his head around the situation from a logical standpoint. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need until you get your memories back, but what if they don’t?”

“I know.” Jack admits, looking sheepish. “I don’t really have a concrete plan. That was just… the only thing I felt like I can do right now.”

“Well…” Mark hesitates, looking down at his lap. “I think a better option might be just going to the police and being honest.” Jack’s gaze rises to him, but he doesn’t interrupt. “I know you don’t want to, but just because you’re labeled a suspect doesn’t mean you’re automatically sentenced to jail.”

“If they think I did it, I wouldn’t have any way of denying it without memories of what happened.”

“I doubt that. There’s no motive for you to have done something like this, and no evidence against you other than you being in the same place. The longer you wait, though, the more suspicious you’re gong to look.”

Jack sighs, putting the empty plate down on the bedside table. There’s a heavy silence between them again, but this time it’s tense. He looks up at Mark, pleading in his eyes. “Twenty-four hours. If I can’t get my memories back by tomorrow, I’ll go to the police.”

“Jack-”

“I really, really appreciate you going out of your way to shelter and feed me. But if you don’t want me to get you in any trouble, I can leave. I don’t mind. This isn’t your problem anyway.”

Mark shakes his head, catching Jack off guard slightly. “No, Jack, listen. I don’t mind at all. I’m just worried for you is all. If this is what you want to do, I’ve got your back, okay? You can trust me.”

The green-haired man lets out a breath, relaxing slightly at the comfort his friend gave him. “Mark… thank you. For everything.”

Mark scoops up the empty dish and swings his legs off of the bed. “I’m just happy to see you safe, okay? You don’t need to worry about it.”

He’s halfway out the door when Jack adds on one more thing. “How are the others holding up?”

Mark stops, turning back. “Hmm?”

“Bob, Wade, Felix, all of them. Are they okay? I feel awful making them worry like this.” He looks sad. Mark feels a jab to his gut.

“They’re worried sick. Terrified, even. We all were.” He admits, and Jack winces. He keeps going anyway. “But soon, they’ll know you’re alive and well. And that’s comfort for me to share with them, even if I can’t tell them yet.”

Jack pulls his knees up to his chest, folding his arms over them. The idea of them worrying over his sake puts him down. “I can’t thank you enough.” He adds on, unable to look at him.

“You don’t have to.” Mark shares with him a warm smile. “Come upstairs whenever you’re feeling up to it. We can unwind a bit with some video games. I bet that’ll cheer you up a bit.”

Jack looks up at him, touched by his kindness, and mirrors his smile. For the first time in a while, things feel alright.

Anti lingers at his bedside, invisible but undoubtedly present.

\------------------------------

_[2:48 PM] Bob: Do you mind if Wade and I stop by your house today?_

Mark glances away from the game he and Jack are playing to read the notification. His friend’s gaze also lands on it, and Mark can tell that Jack wants nothing more than to speak to them and tell him that he’s alive and safe. But he stays silent.

When Mark opens skype, there’s actually several notifications he had missed. All from different people. But first, he replies to Bob.

_[2:49 PM] Mark: You guys are in town?_

_[2:49 PM] Bob: Yeah, we figured it would be better on all of us if we were around each other for a couple days. Can we call?_

Mark and Jack exchange a glance, and Jack nods, zipping his lips. With hesitation, he initiates the call and refuses the webcam option. Despite this, Bob and Wade show up on the screen in the same camera shot. It looked as though they were in a hotel room. “Mark?” Bob asks.

“Sorry, not really up for webcam right now.” He says solemnly, sparing a side-long glance at Jack, who looks away in shame.

“That’s okay. We’ve been trying to reach you all morning, though. We would have told you we were coming sooner, but-”

“I know. Sorry.”

“No, no it’s fine.” Wade interjects. “We’re both at the hotel right now. We figured we could all go out for some dinner tonight or something. Does that sound good with you?”

Mark leans back a bit. “Um. Yeah, yeah that’s fine.”

The two on the camera share a glance. “Can we come over a bit earlier before dinner?” Wade asks quietly, turning back. Jack whirls around and is immediately shaking his head, cutting his hands across his throat. Mark gets the message.

“Ah, uh, sorry guys. It’s uh, I’m not really up for that. Dinner would be fine though.”

“Are you good?” Bob asks, voice full of concern.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. Text me details later, okay?”

“Sure thing.”

Wade opens his mouth as if to say more, but Mark interrupts. “See you guys then.” He dismisses, dropping the call before they had a chance to speak. Jack stares wistfully at the screen. There’s a beat of silence, and he fidgets in his lap, unable to look away from his friends’ icons. “I feel bad.” He mutters softly. Mark nods in agreement. “I… I want to tell them I’m okay.”

“As much as I really want you to, if you want to stay hidden from the police for a bit longer, you need as few people knowing as possible.”

Jack nods numbly. “I’m starting to think my idea is stupid.”

Mark switches out of skype and back into the game, handing Jack his gamepad. “Well, I’ll be ready to walk you to the police station whenever you are, okay? I want this straightened out as much as you do.”

Jack nods. They continue playing their game, but any bit of enthusiasm they had before is gone now. Not a minute later, Jack excuses himself and runs to the bathroom to toss the pancakes he had eaten earlier. Mark, unsure of what to do to help, has to sit and listen to the sounds of him retching in the echoing bathroom. He rubs at his face and neck, trying to process what in the world he’s gotten himself into.

When Jack returns, Mark pats him gently on the back, and agrees to stop playing when Jack says he’s not up for it anymore. He retreats back to the guest room, leaving Mark alone to his thoughts. The midday sun filters in through his windows.


	4. That Never Sees the Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters to go- thank you for the kudos and comments guys, they really mean a lot!!

Mark is running late to dinner.

He figures Bob and Wade can wait, though. He’s in the middle of doing laundry, and he wants to see if he can get the blood out of Jack’s clothes while he’s sleeping. He’s not quite sure how, but a quick google search led him to some options to try. He’s just hoping he doesn’t end up ruining them.

Then again, how much worse can they get?

He picks up Jack’s jeans and feels something heavy in the clothes. Curious, he fishes into the back pocket and finds a pocketknife sheathed inwards. With a cocked eyebrow, he flicks it open.

The blade is covered in dried blood.

Mark reels a bit, dropping the knife. It clatters against the floor with an uncomfortably loud noise, and he stares down at it for a long time.

_No, it’s just a coincidence._

He reaches back down and picks up the knife, examining it’s size. Now he’s curious.

Another few quick google searches lead him to articles written about Signe’s death. He scrolls for a bit, scanning and hovering, unable to really find what he’s looking for, until his eyes capture it.

“The weapon, which fits the size of a medium sized pocket knife, was not found at the scene.”

Mark leans back a bit, biting on one of his nails. He flicks open the pocket knife again, at the blood decorating the blade, and tries to think. He taps the base of the pocket knife against the table a couple of times, and then finally, rises to go to the guestroom.

He knocks a couple times, and is surprised to hear Jack reply with a weak, “Yes?”

Mark lets himself in, looking a bit disheveled. Jack isn’t in bed like he thought he’d be. He’s sitting on the stool against the window, looking out the window at Chica in the backyard, joyfully chasing a leaf in the breeze. His shoulders are wrapped up in the blanket.

“Is this yours?” Mark asks, holding the pocket knife up to him.

Jack nods, a bit too hesitantly for Mark’s liking. Then again, it was probably because Mark was far away and Jack didn’t have his glasses. “Yeah, that’s mine. Why?”

He walks towards him gravely, before unsheathing the blade and showing him the blood. Jack stares at it for several seconds before his eyes widen at the sight of it. “Is that-”

Mark watches him carefully, deathly silent. Jack looks up at him. “Mark, I have no idea how blood got on it. Let me see it…”

It’s weight leaves his hand as Jack holds it closer to himself, trying to see it in greater detail. “Yeah, this is my pocketknife.” He says quietly, transfixed by the blood. “How…”

“I was, um,” Mark starts, but Jack doesn’t look away from his item. “I was reading an article about… the murder. It said the weapon fit a medium-sized pocket knife, and that they hadn’t found it.”

Jack’s face snaps up to Mark’s, their eyes locking. He looks at him with disbelief and terror. “What??”

Neither of them say anything. Neither of them know quite what to say. Jack looks back down at the knife.

“Jack-”

“This looks bad. This looks so bad. Mark, I swear, this wasn’t me. I didn’t do this. There’s no way that I-”

Jack flinches violently. His swift motion causes the knife to fall from his grasp and clatter onto the floor, and his gaze drops to his lap, eyes closed. He shudders. This catches Mark completely off guard. He wants to call Jack’s name, but something’s caught in his throat, and he can’t speak. He only stares, his arm outstretched, as Jack shudders again, and his head lolls for a split second before he catches it again.

Finally, he finds his voice. “Jack?”

Jack raises his head.

His eyes are glowing green.

“I will not have you ruin this for me.” Jack says, but it doesn’t sound quite like Jack.

Mark takes a step backwards, completely out of his element of comfort, and Not-Jack stands up. He seems to do so crookedly, as though he had forgotten how to control his own limbs. His arms hang loosely at his sides. “This vessel is mine, and I’m not letting you stand in my way.”

The thing- It’s definitely not Jack- reaches down and picks up the pocket knife. Mark feels his heart pound against his chest, and blood roars in his ears.

“Die.”

It lunges for Mark, knife raised, and Mark bolts. He kicks off the ground, yelling at the top of his lungs though he knows none of his neighbors could hear him, and he’s running through the house to get to his front door. He makes it just into the hallway when Not-Jack swings his knife and catches Mark in the back. The moment of weakness where he slows down is the moment it takes to plunge the knife deep into his shoulder from behind.

Before he even has a chance to register the pain, especially as Not-Jack yanks the knife back out, something overtakes Mark, and he’s confused because suddenly his arm is moving on it’s own accord, and there are thoughts in his mind he’s not familiar with, and a new presence joins his consciousness. He stands up and plants the palm of his hand into Not-Jack’s nose with a powerful strike, and then whirls around, looking for a weapon.

_What’s happening?_ Mark cries out, fighting to massage the pain in his shoulder despite having no control over his arm. It stings, and there’s blood soaking his clothing.

_No time to explain. My name is Dark. I’m trying to save you._

Mark, or Dark now he supposes, since he no longer as control over his own limbs, reaches for the hallway table for a vase. He hauls it at his attacker, flowers and all, who dodges last second. The glass shatters on the floor, and water pools on the wood.

“Anti, stop this!” Dark snaps with Mark’s voice, and it’s so disorienting that Mark has to take several mental steps backwards.

“What’s the matter Dark? Scared I’m going to kill your pet?” It says in Jack’s voice, making another leap at him.

There’s a sudden, sharp pain in his head, and then the new presence is gone, rejected by Mark’s consciousness. He realizes he’s alone again, facing an entity, Anti apparently, that wants to kill him.

Mark lets out a terrified shriek. He’s fighting, trying to connect a fist to it’s jaw, _something_ to make an opportunity for him to escape, but Anti tackles him to the ground. His knee is pinning his good shoulder to the floorboards, and struggling only makes the pain in Mark’s shoulder deepen.

“Couldn’t even handle controlling him for a couple seconds?” Jack’s voice gives a pitiful _tsk_. “Shame, really. Not long before we’re due to fade, and guess who’s going to be all set in their new body. It’s not going to be you, Dark.”

Mark is confused, but it hardly matters. That’s the least of his problems. He wails in agony when Anti stabs the knife into his bad shoulder again, in a different place. He’s panicking, unable to think, unable to breathe, and he tries to fish his hand up to capture the arm holding the knife, to stop it from hurting him again. However, he’s wounded and disoriented, making it no trouble at all for Anti to plunge the knife in again against his strength, this time it slices into his arm.

Again, the knife is yanked out, but Mark no longer has a voice to scream. The world is swimming, with the edges of his vision tugging at darkness. His jaw hangs open in a silent plea for help, but it does nothing.

The last thing he sees is the knife coming down once more, near his shoulder but closer to his chest. He writhers, blood pooling at his teeth and dripping down his chin. He hears a loud screaming noise in his ear, and it takes him several seconds to realize that it’s his own voice. Anti is still staring down at him, looking angry, until suddenly, he’s not angry anymore. He’s wincing and clutching his head, reeling backwards. His knee is removed from Mark’s shoulder, and as he stands, he takes the knife with him.

Mark is fading, and fast, but he manages to see Anti look somewhere to his right for several long seconds before booking in the opposite direction, towards the window in the hallway that leads outside.

The last thing Mark manages to hear is someone knocking on his front door.

\------------------------------

The internet seems to be in shambles right now.

Wade alternates between flipping through twitter and tumblr. It’s not like he’s surprised, really, but it’s unusual when compared to normality.

But right now, he kind of wishes they would forget everything right now, because he and Bob are on their way to the hospital after the ambulance had taken Mark, and Wade really doesn’t want to think right now.

He feels a sense of luck that he and Bob had happened to show up at his door when they did, because had it been any longer, he wasn’t sure if Mark would have made it. The blood was what really got to Wade, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

The doors of his house had been locked. They could see him in the hallway, bleeding and unconscious, and they had to break a window open in order to get to him. They’d worry about that later.

Knife wounds, it seemed. Just like Signe.

Wade tries to push it out of his mind right now.

They’re, of course, not allowed to see Mark while the doctors tended to him. Both of them remained still in the waiting room, trying to find distractions. It wasn’t easy, especially with Jack’s disappearance. It seemed like everything was just falling apart around them, and Wade felt tired.

He woke up later with his head on Bob’s shoulder, who happened to be fast asleep, and Wade didn’t really want to move. So he remained that way, leaning on his friend’s shoulder, wishing and praying that Mark would be okay.

A doctor comes to get them, and Wade is waiting for the doctor to confirm that Mark is okay.

He has to be.

\------------------------------

Jack wakes up staring at the sky.

His skin itches beneath him, and he realizes it’s because he’s laying in tall grass. He sits up immediately, looking over himself for bugs that were undoubtedly crawling around in the grass, but instead, he finds blood on him. It causes him to pause and stare.

It’s not much. It’s just specks and splatters. But it’s still blood nonetheless, and he stares at it for several seconds.

He takes a moment to look around and see where he is. It was a park, with a playground down the road and a couple of kids trying to fly a kite in the field nearby. He was sitting close to a river, with grass stains in his clothing as if he’d been laying there a while.

_Surprised?_

Jack jumps at the sudden voice and whirls around. But he is alone.

“Who’s there?”

_You don’t have to be so chatty. I can hear your thoughts._

Jack swallows, his hands beginning to shake. _What do you mean?_

_There you go._ The voice sounds condescending. Jack doesn’t like it. _My name is Anti. It’s a pleasure to meet you._

Jack has nothing to say, stunned into silence, so he waits until the voice continues to speak. _Do you have any memory of what just happened?_

_Uhh… no?_

_What’s the last thing you remember?_

Jack reaches back into his memories, trying to replay something that happened recently. He finally settles on watching Chica in the backyard from the guest room. _And then Mark came in. To show me… the pocketknife._

_You’re getting better at remembering events closer to the incident. Excellent._  He can practically hear the voice smile, which creeps him out. Jack stands up, wiping grass blades off of his pants.

_What am I doing in a park?_ He thinks, more to himself, but Anti decides to answer for him anyway.

_I brought you here after you stabbed Mark to death._

Jack stops. The world freezes to a standstill around him, and he can’t move. His eyes widen, and he straightens up, staring into the river flowing just yards in front of him, reflecting the clouds slowly rolling by above him. _What do you mean by that?_ He asks, though he doesn’t exactly want an answer.

_I mean exactly what I said,_ the voice is doing that smiling thing again, _I’m also the one that steered you through the streets after you stabbed Signe to death. Funny how events repeat themselves._

“No.” Jack says aloud, because he needs to use his own voice. “No, I didn’t- that wasn’t-”

_Wasn’t your fault? I think the murder weapon and the finger prints on it beg to differ. Especially when you killed a man right after he confronted you about it._

His mind does the equivalent of a summersault, making Jack reel backwards and take a couple seconds to regain his composure. “You- you did this!”

_Ding ding ding, get the kid a prize. Can’t go to the police now, can you? Unless of course you want to go to jail._

Jack can’t breathe. He can’t think. The world starts swimming around him and he feels as though he’s going to throw up again. His feverish skin feels worse than before, and suddenly he’s too hot for his own body. “What are you doing to me?” He cries out, tears pricking at the corner of his eyes.

The kids in the field nearby hear him yelling, and they all collectively stop to glance over. Jack takes that as a cue to run, pulling his hood up over his hair to keep anyone from recognizing him, and bolting as fast as he can. His throat is tight, he can’t regain composure, and he’s going to lose it.

_Where are you planning on going? You aren’t welcome anywhere. Not after what you’ve done._

Jack clutches at his head. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” He starts chanting, making a break for the nearest town. He pulls the hood farther down his head, trying to drown out the world around him, to find silence in his own brain, but it only seems to block him in closer with the voice. Nausea climbs up his stomach, and bile swishes around his mouth. Sweat drips down his skin in buckets, and everything becomes too much.

_Enjoy your last few hours on earth._


	5. Where the Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story went a tad longer than I had originally planned. Try 15,327 words and counting. The next chapter is going to be like four times as long as normal chapters. So, prepare for that, haha.

Mark wakes up in a hospital bed.

It takes him several seconds of floating and surfing, lost in a lucid drift as though he were wandering in a dream, before he’s able to accurately distinguish reality. When the bed beneath him feels more stable, and the room stops spinning, he’s able to recognize Bob and Wade sitting in the chairs beside the bed. Bob’s eyes are closed, and Wade’s on his phone, both slouched as if they had been sitting there a while.

Mark opens his mouth to call Wade’s name, but his tongue feels like lead, and he only manages a small grunt. The noise not only disturbs his shoulder somehow, sending discomfort through the wound, but it also wakes up Bob and captures Wade’s distracted attention.

Wade calls his name. It sounds a bit far away. He and Bob stand up and crouch next to the hospital bed, and it takes Wade a couple seconds of speaking before Mark can properly decipher what’s being said to him.

“What?” Mark slurs, his head throbbing in response.

“How’re you feeling?” Wade repeats himself, and crosses his arms on the mattress, a look of terror over his face.

His shoulder has a dull ache. He figures he’s high on morphine. “Awful.” He admits, closing his eyes. Despite this, he can hear Wade and Bob give small sighs of relief.

“God, Mark…” Bob leans his head against his hand. “We thought…”

Mark opens his eyes again, blinking his friends back into focus. Wade wipes his eyes with his arm, and he immediately feels bad. Seeing them like this dishevels him, and he wants to give them both a hug and assure them he’s okay. Well, more or less. “Do you remember what happened?” Wade asks him when he locks his gaze.

Mark tries to think back. He’s trying not to pass out again, reaching through the memories leading up to the- Jack. He remembers Jack attacking him. Or rather, Not-Jack. Anti. The knife plunging into his shoulder repeatedly. He screws his eyes shut and purses his lips together to keep from reacting, but he’s pretty low on both physical and mental health at the moment, and he can’t really filter out a grimace.

Both his friends seem to notice this slight break in composure, leading to Wade putting a comforting hand on Mark’s good shoulder. “You okay?”

Mark admits a no with the shake of his his head. This was a mess. Bob leans on the edge of the bed and Wade rubs small circles into Mark’s shoulder. He feels like crying, honestly, but he realizes he needs to come up with a cover. Because whatever attacked him was definitely not Jack. But what else was he supposed to say to his two worried friends’ faces while they are looking out for his safety?

He swallows uncomfortably. His head is pounding.

“The police want to talk to you at some point.” Wade tells him, and Mark tries to nod in acknowledgement. It’s hard to hide the terror on his face, but it seemed to mix into a grimace. He needed to come up with something, and fast. For Jack’s sake.

He had to do _something._

“Do you know who did this?” Bob asks gently, trying to bait Mark’s attention, which seems to keep drifting. He feels like going back to sleep.

Mark ends up shaking his head. He feels nauseous. Bob rises to go notify a nurse that Mark was now awake, and Wade returns to his chair, leaning on his knees.

Time after that blurred. Doctors came in and out, Bob and Wade tried to keep small-talk with Mark, and eventually, the police arrived to speak to him. He wanted his friends to stay in the room during this part, because he felt like he could lie easier with them in the room, especially after he told them he didn’t know who attacked him.

And that’s exactly what he told the police. However, it occurred to him later that this might not be a good idea. He wondered if they were searching his house for clues.

That hits him in the gut mid-sentence.

Jack’s clothes are in a hamper in the laundry room. The guest bed was disturbed. There’s a second gamepad plugged into his computer. Extra dirty dishes. It would be obvious that someone else had been there, even if they didn’t find Jack’s clothes. He prays they don’t.

And he realizes, halfway through the conversation, that the police know this. Because then, they ask if anyone had been over at his house during the attack. Mark shakes his head. They ask him if anyone had been over at all within the past few days.

Mark swallows. “My girlfriend.” He musters out in response to the question. He feels his heart monitor start to rise a bit at the blatant lie. He wills them not to notice. The rhythm of his heart exposed to the room was a mental drum that kept him sane, and now that it was picking up, he felt disheveled. “Stayed the night.”

They ask him who she is, and he complies. He makes a mental note to call her as soon as the officers leave.

When they finally do, he asks Bob and Wade if Amy knows he’s in the hospital. Wade mentions he told her and a couple other close people about the situation, and that Amy should be there any moment. And it was then that she decides to enter.

Bob and Wade leave to give them some privacy, and that’s when Mark dives into his prepared spiel. “Amy, if the police ask, you were at my house last night, okay?” It puts a strain on his voice, but he’s too panicked to stop. His heart rate monitor slowly rises. “You got there yesterday evening, played a few video games, and you slept in the guest room bed because you were feeling ill with a stomach bug.”

“I… what?” She interjects, leaning forward.

“Please, you have to trust me.” Mark says softly. “I can try to explain everything later, but you just… need to trust me right now okay?”

She stares at him, dumbfounded, before returning with a gentle nod. They spend a little time together, with Mark slowly starting to feel that pain in his shoulder more and more. Eventually, he asks Amy to go ahead and head home. He needed some time to think on his own. She takes her leave with a kiss and words of comfort, a look of genuine worry on her face. He feels bad for making everyone worry.

It’s not long before someone stops by his room. “Mr. Fischbach, you have a visitor by the name of Billy Steve.”

_Jack._

“Let him in.” Mark says as nonchalantly as he possibly can, his heart racing once more. He feels about ready to have a heart attack from all the surprises today. Eventually, a short man with his hands jammed into his jacket pockets and a hood flung over his head enters the room.

“Oh God, Mark…” Jack mutters softly, and it’s all the confirmation he needs to know it’s not Anti.

When he tries to say hello to his visitor, he coughs. Jack closes the door behind him and enters the room, unable to sit. There’s an awkward silence between them for several seconds before Jack falls to his knees beside the bed and buries his face in the side of the mattress. “Mark, Mark, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know… God this is all my fault I should never have gone to your house I should never have gotten you involved in this I had no idea I’m sorry I didn’t do this I didn’t try to hurt you I didn’t-”

“Jack.” Mark says softly. The Irishman raises his head, his eyes red and blotchy. He’s sniffling.

“You could be _dead_ right now, Mark! And it would have been all my fault, and I can’t- I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“ _Jack_.” Mark tries again, feeling useless without mobility. “It was Anti’s fault.”

Jack’s attention snaps back to him. He sniffles once more. “You… you know it was Anti?”

“He made it… pretty clear when he attacked.” Mark musters out, trying to offer a small smile of assurance. Jack doesn’t mirror it.

Mark thinks of those split seconds when Dark took control. He wonders what had even happened in that moment, and why he can remember it when Jack clearly loses memory of Anti’s possession. He tries not to think too hard about it to save his growing headache.

“What day is it?” Mark asks under his breath.

Jack doesn’t look at him. “It’s been about 22 hours since I… since Anti attacked you.”

He tries to think about what that means to him. “What have you been doing since then?”

“I woke up not long after.” Came his reply, and he crosses his arms over the mattress. “But I didn’t hear you were okay until just recently. Anti told me he killed you. I thought you were _dead_.” He wipes at his eyes furiously, trying to stop the waterworks.

“I’m okay.” Mark answers softly, even though he doesn’t feel like it. “Just a little shaken. I can’t say it was very knife to meet Anti.”

His friend stares at him so long that that Mark wonders if he had even heard him. He knows he did when Jack proclaims, very matter-of-factly, “I’m going to punch you in the face.”

“I get the point, I promise.”

“Stop.”

“Aw come on, it’s not my fault I have sharp wit.”

There’s disappointed silence for several seconds before they both break into much needed laughter. Jack buries his head in his arms to control his laughing, and Mark can see tears running down his face. His own eyes well up with his pained chuckles, his shoulder wound flaring up. But he ignores it.

“Finally, I can use the stab jokes I’ve been holding onto for so long.” He exclaims through his hysterics, raising his good arm to cover his mouth and wipe at his nose.

“I hate you so much.” Jack replies affectionately, raising his head and taking breaths to calm his giggles.

When they both settle down, Jack’s smile seems to melt, and he looks over at the clock on the bedside table. The room grows eerily still. “Visiting hours are almost over.” He says softly, looking at the floor.

Mark frowns, finally paying mind to the ache in his shoulder. He, too, glances over at the clock to see for himself. “Will you be okay?” He asks him, not knowing what to say or what to do for Jack.

There’s a silence that Mark’s not comfortable with, and his friend doesn’t look at him. “Jack?” He calls his name, making sure he’s still himself.

The Irishman gives a hefty sigh. “I… There’s something I need to tell you.” He stands up, pulling out the pocketknife in his pocket. Mark’s heart starts beating fast for a moment, blood pounding in his ears at the sight of something that caused him so much harm, but Jack places it in Mark’s bag in the corner of the room and zips it up. “This being, Anti,” He starts softly. “Soon, he’s going to be the only one controlling my body.”

Mark’s gaze snaps up at him. “Wait, _what?_ ”

“Apparently,” Jack doesn’t look at him, “He’s been trying to completely take me over. And soon, my… mind, my consciousness, won’t really exist anymore. It’ll just be him.”

“But… no, there’s no way he can do-”

“Mark.” Jack interrupts. He stops talking. “This is why I’ve decided to turn myself into the police.”

There’s silence again. It seems to come up a lot. Jack still doesn’t look at his friend, turning to pace the room a bit. “I want you to hold onto the knife. So Anti doesn’t try anything on my way to the station. If I’m in custody when he takes over, he can’t cause anyone harm anymore. It’ll be over.”

It doesn’t really seem to sink in. Mark feels a bit disconnected. “But-”

“I’m sorry.” Jack says softly, looking at the floor. “Thank you for everything, Mark. Not just for sheltering and feeding me when I needed it, but also for helping and inspiring me in my YouTube career, and being my best friend. You mean a lot to me, and I’m so, so thankful that you’re okay.”

He’s at the door now, his hand on the doorknob. Jack slowly opens it, watching it move, as though he doesn’t want to leave. Finally, he looks at Mark for the last time. Their eyes meet. There are tears running down Jack’s face, but he doesn’t seem to pay them any attention. He looks like the entire world is burdening itself on his shoulders, slipping with every passing second though he struggles to keep it upright. Mark can make out a hint of his green hair under the hood, and he doesn’t know what to think.

“Goodbye.”

“Jack-”

Billy Steve exits the hospital. No one pays him any attention.

Mark cries into his hand. No one pays him any attention, either.

A presence appears in the back of his mind. Dark.

Mark pays him attention.

_Do you want to stop Anti?_

Silence.

Darkness.

Peace.

...

Mark is floating.

The dark void that surrounds him seems endless, with no hint of light in sight. That being said, somehow this dark demon that speaks his name still can be distinguished. He stands before him as if the ground were solid, and when he walks, ripples appear beneath his feet as though he were walking in a puddle of water.

“Do you want to stop Anti?”

Mark knows he’s dreaming. He’s not sure how, but he doesn’t really think it matters. His consciousness hadn’t been really reliable lately. “You were the one that took me over.” He blurts out without really meaning to.

“For a couple short seconds, yes. I probably saved your life.”

“I still got stabbed.”

The demon shrugs. Dark walks towards him, hands behind his back. “Do you want to stop Anti?” He repeats, looking the man in the eye.

“Of course I do!” Mark replies, still trying to process it from when the question was asked the first time. “But how can you help?”

Dark paces for a moment. It’s still eerily silent, and when they speak, their voices seem to echo. This seems to be the demon’s domain, for he seems very comfortable. “Anti and I are the same in many ways. We may not share personality, but we share fates. After our species exists for so long, we can either possess a human body and live among the humans until we, ‘recharge’ as you’d say, or we fade away as if we never existed. Our time is coming up very soon.”

“Wait.” Mark holds a hand up, even though Dark had already paused. “How soon?”

“Within the hour I’d say.” Dark estimates.

“So you’d be disappearing as well?”

“Correct.”

Mark bites his nail, trying to think. “What does that have to do with Anti and Jack?”

Dark hasn’t stopped pacing in the time he’s been speaking, but Mark’s feet have been glued to the spot. “I can give Anti enough of a mental push to get his essence out of your friend, just before he’s due to fade. I just need to be close enough.”

There’s a moment where Mark just stares. “Wait- but what would that do for you?”

Dark smirks. “I never liked Anti. Getting him to fade with me would be an accomplishment I can take with me. That’s all I want.”

Mark’s not so sure. He knows making a deal with the devil- or a demon- was always a bad choice. But he realizes he doesn’t have a lot of options. Especially if he wanted even the slightest chance of saving Jack. So he’d just have to trust him. “What do you need?”

Dark smiles at his unspoken acceptance. “I just need to possess you long enough to get close to them. Which means we must move swiftly. The longer we wait, the less chance we’ll find them before they reach the police station.”

“We need to hurry then. Let’s go.” Mark decides on the spot, with no room for hesitation. A chance to save Jack was a chance he had to take. He stood waiting for Dark to make the first move. Then, there’s a sudden shove in his mind, as if someone were crawling into his skin, and he shudders at the sensation. The figure before him turns to mist, spreading the atmosphere around him and cutting off his breath for several seconds.

When he wakes up with a violent jerk, he can hear his heart monitor pounding violently as though he were panicking. He might as well be. He’s not really sure what he has control over right now.

He sits up. Well, he doesn’t do so willingly. Mark is still trying to wake up, but Dark is already on the move, controlling him like a puppet. The window filters in the evening sky, and it shouldn’t have been more than ten minutes since Jack had left. Dark disconnects the IV and other attachments, and Mark feels every scream of his wounds. Dark heads for the door, albeit slowly, but stops suddenly.

 _What?_ Mark asks, trying to get him to keep going.

Dark turns around to the pack in the corner of the room. He unzips the front pocket and pulls out the knife that Jack had dropped off.

 _What are you doing?_ Mark asks.

 _Just in case._ Is all Dark replies. He isn’t sure what to say to this, so he stops talking.

Dark also reaches into the bag and pulls out the change of clothes that Amy had brought over for Mark. He tucks it under his arm and opens the door to the room, double checking the hall before heading towards the waiting rooms.

There, he finds a bathroom to change in. He throws on a jacket and jeans, and throws the hood over his red hair and slips on black sunglasses to keep people from recognizing him. With this, he strolls right towards the elevator. No one spares him a second glance.

The sliding doors close behind him, and he steps into the late spring night.


	6. Are the Heroes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to break the last chapter up into two just to shorten it down- but we’re almost done! Thanks for the comments and kudos- they really mean a lot to me!

He finds Jack twenty minutes later, just two blocks from the police station in an alley with his hand up against the wall. He was doubled over, as if he were about to be sick onto the concrete. Dark hesitates at the edge of the alley, watching for a moment, a breeze tickling Mark’s skin. The silence is odd, and Mark is about to prod him to do something.

“Anti.” Dark calls out to him, and Jack snaps up, swirling around.

“Dark.” Anti replies with Jack’s voice, matter-of-factly. Mark feels a pang of terror, hoping that Jack is still inside that head.

Mark can feel his hand toying with the pocketknife in his hoodie, bracing himself for the moment Dark does… something. He’s not really sure what he expects to do, but he’s trying his best to be patient, so he waits. Jack definitely does not look like Jack. It’s eerie.

“Surprised?” Dark gives a small smile.

“Quite.” Anti straightens up, crossing an arm across his chest and rubbing his chin. He looks smug. Or sadistically curious. “How’d you get him to let you in?”

“It was easy.” Dark shrugs, smiling too, with an arm cradling the wounded shoulder. “I just told him I could save his friend. He was very eager to let me take over.”

 _What?_ Mark demands angrily inside him. _What are you talking about? Get him out of Jack! You told me you would help me!_

Dark ignores him.

“A willing possession takes time for the host’s consciousness to fade while you’re occupying him. Is he enjoying the view?” Anti asks, walking over with his arms in front of him.

“Oh yes.” Dark grins. “And it was so much easier than making him kill people, what with the cleanup and the extra physical work.”

“And not a minute too soon.” Anti taps on his wrist, though there’s no watch. They get the point. It wouldn’t have been long before they were due to fade.

 _Let me out!_ Mark is starting to panic, thrashing about within the depths of his own mind. _You lied to me! Dark!_ The pain in his shoulder is unbearable, and his mental state seems to be crumbling around him.

“You look awful.” Dark points out, fiddling with the knife in his pocket.

“As if you look any better.” Anti retorts, looking in the opposite direction to make sure no one was walking by. He fixes the hood covering his green hair. 

Dark sends him an annoyed glance. “Last time I checked that was your fault.”

He shrugs. “You’re lucky I left him alive.”

“You don’t normally leave people alive.”

In the back of Dark’s mind, Mark begins to scream, pounding against the walls of his consciousness. He wants it to do something to the being occupying his body, but it doesn’t even seem to faze him. _Please, I’ll do anything, let me free! Let me go!_

_Can it, Fischbach. I haven’t lied to you._

He stops freaking out just long enough to listen to the silence for a second. _What?_

 _I’m still going to take Anti down._ Dark says to him during the silence between the two in the alley. Mark is still reeling a bit, still very confused. He’s not really sure what to say to this.

_But… then why haven’t you done anything yet?_

There’s a pause. _I think Anti is expecting me to attack._

_Why would he?_

“It was a mistake.” Anti says, referring to Dark’s previous statement. “You know the process is taxing on strength. I don’t plan on making that same mistake again.”

“Clearly.” Dark rubs at his patched wound.

 _This goes on longer than you think, Fischbach._ Dark returns to their conversation, closing his eyes. It helps Mark get a better grasp on his consciousness. _Anti and I are the last of our species. It’s not that we prefer being around each other. We’ve just been unfortunate enough to be stuck with the same fates._

Mark has to let that sink in. He doesn’t say much other than a thoughtful murmur, trying to piece together how this story ends.

_So when I take Anti down, and I go as well, it’ll be the end of our wretched kind. And I’ve been waiting for this for so long._

He’s a bit caught off guard. This wasn’t really what he was expecting, but he can’t really sense any discrepancy in Dark’s words.

_You’re that willing to end your race?_

Dark chuckles in his mind, but outwardly, he is composed. _You wouldn’t understand._

Mark figures he’s right about one thing. He doesn’t understand. Frankly, he’s not even sure if he wants to understand. But the one thing he’s sure of is that, through this stranger’s act, Jack will be safe, and that’s all that matters. He just has to wait for the moment Dark will make his move, and everything will be okay.

It has to be.

_However, I will admit, I lied about one thing._

A pause between them. Dark sounds slightly smug, and it makes Mark feel numb. He dares to ask, _You lied about what?_

Dark leans his head against the back wall of the alley. The texture of the bricks, which seem to be flaking as though they were old and frail, scrapes against the back of his skull, and his shoulder’s ache grows ever worse. His veins feel like knives, digging into his arm and sending needles of agony up to his very fingertips. 

He stops feeling the pain altogether when Dark speaks to him again.

_I can’t make Anti vanish without killing your friend._

Mark doesn’t even have a chance to react. Dark’s eyes snap open, the light of the evening pouring into his vision, and the fingers wrapped around the knife in his pocket are suddenly in motion. He swings his arm sideways, without even glancing, and sends the knife deep into Jack’s chest, who was leaning against the alley next to him.

Mark screams into the void of his own head, with no control over his limbs. _No! Stop!_ He feels himself clawing at his consciousness, but nothing budges.

Mark can hear Jack screaming, but it doesn’t quite sound like Jack. It’s twisted and mangled, and he’s falling to his knees while Dark yanks the knife back out. Anti spits out blood, one hand at his chest while the other braces him against the ground. “You traitor!” He spats, raising his head to look at Dark.

A swift kick to Jack’s face sends him sideways, and his shoulder hits the ground with a lame thump. When he struggles to turn over, Dark turns him onto his back and drives his knee into his shoulder, keeping him pinned to the ground. Anti is panting. His breaths are audible and full of blood, with a trickle seeping out from the corner of his mouth. Mark can see the knife wound wasn’t quite where his heart was- but it was dangerously close. “I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time, Anti.” Dark hisses under his breath, ignoring the pounding and wailing coming from the second voice in his head.

 _Stop! You have to stop! Please! I’ll do anything- just please stop hurting Jack!_ Mark felt like he was losing his grip on consciousness. The edges of his vision seemed dark, and his screaming shoulder pain dulls with every push.

But then he notices, his struggling is making a difference. Dark is showing all the nuances Mark feels when he’s tired or weary, and it only grows worse the more Mark pushes against his control.

There’s a moment of hesitation, where Mark thinks he has control again, and that pause of Dark’s concentration gives Anti the opportunity to spring off the ground with a shriek. Anti lunges forward to strangle him, his fingers wrapping around his throat and giving a tight squeeze, burying Mark’s back into the brick wall behind him. Mark can feel the lack of air. It doesn’t help with his control- but he musters up all his strength and gives another mental shove for his limbs.

Dark flails the knife forward with sudden control, catching his opponent’s chest and drawing a line of red blood through his sweater. Anti doesn’t hesitate to keep squeezing, so Dark takes the knife and sticks it right into one of his fore-arms.

With the lack of strength in one arm, Dark had enough room to free himself and regain the air he had lost. Mark feels every gasp for air. They’re audible and full of pain, and his throat screams while the world swims around him. Anti is screeching in pain, and Dark goes in again, sending the knife into his gut. In response, Anti throws the palm of his hand into Mark’s nose, throwing him several steps backwards. A trickle of blood runs down his face.

One more gathering of strength, and Mark _shoves_.

He feels control over his fingers.

His arms.

He blinks.

Mark looks up at Anti, with the truest deer-in-headlights expression, and has only a second to dodge the punch going towards his face and run sideways.

As a last second thought, he throws his weight onto Anti, ignoring the painful cry of his shoulder at the jostle. Anti doesn’t seem to put up much of a fight- Mark knows how the knife wounds feel- and pins him to the ground once more.

He holds the blade up to Jack’s- Anti’s- throat and presses him into the cold ground. “Get out of Jack!” He demands as loud as his weary, croaky voice allows him, with his injured arm curled up against his body reflexively. He presses his weight into his knees, keeping Anti to the ground.

Anti stares at him for several seconds before letting out an incredibly uncomfortable laugh. It sounds weird in Jack’s voice, especially since it wasn’t really a laugh- it was more of a wheeze. Blood was pooling at his lips. “Or what?” He asks between gasps for air, looking down at the blade. “You’ll kill him? I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Mark hesitates, just as he figured he would, and that’s when Anti lurches upwards, pushing the knife away from his throat. But suddenly, there’s a beat. Anti grips his head and curls inwards, taking several steps backwards with his mouth agape as if he were screaming. Mark is caught off guard, drawing in painful breaths of air and watching with confusion.

Then he remembers. The only reason he had taken back over was due to the pain coursing through him, and the small moments of weariness he tapped into.

Jack.

Hope runs through his beating heart at the idea that Jack was fighting back. However, in his moment of hesitation, Anti springs off the ground, looking frantic as though he were falling to pieces, and he knocks Mark against the wall. His head gives a loud crack against the red bricks and, lacking all eloquence, he slumps to the ground.

Mark’s eyes shut close, and he doesn’t move.

That’s the chance Jack takes to scream. At the top of his mental ability, with all the force and strength he can muster, he releases a shattering wail that shakes the very walls of Anti’s mind. His hands come up to claw at his head, and he falls to his knees, feeling the world spin back into his own vision and control. Anti is pushing, hard, to keep control of his puppet, but Jack taps into the pain, and the suffering, and the terror, and the weariness, and it’s just enough of a shock to force his way back into control.

He can just hear Anti’s shriek in the back of his head when he can start moving his own fingers- and the presence at the back of his mind seems to melt. When Jack comes to, he can hear himself panting with painful gasps, and all the blood running down his open wounds is only the icing. The pain lacing his skin is unbearable. And then, when he goes for his body, he finds his own control once more. Despite the pain, he feels relief course through him, and he exhales an audible breath that he feels he’s been holding for a very long time.

He presses his lips together to keep himself from wailing, leaning forward and pressing his forehead into the cold, dirty ground. He takes several large gulps of air, unable to process what was happening right that moment, and he feels sick to his stomach. Darkness tugs at the edges of his vision. Blood was everywhere. He felt sick.

His head finally raises after he feels like he could move, and the first thing he sees is Mark’s slumped figure on the ground by the wall, with blood running down his face and shoulder. Terror seizes him, and wills him to stand, but the second he attempts to move again, he finds the world start to spin around him, with his vision blurring into a funnel of vague colors.

Before Mark’s name could leave his lips, he falls, feeling the blood pooling out of his open wounds. He feels blood bubbling at his throat and lips, and it seeps onto the cold ground beneath his cheek.

The world becomes dark.

He feels no more.


	7. And the Thieves are Left to Drown

Mark wakes up to a police officer standing over him.

He feels awful. His face is pressed into the bloody concrete, and when he looks away from the police officer, he could see Jack laying down several feet away, slumped over and stained with blood. Sirens were blaring, and they must have only just arrived, because paramedics were rushing to both of them, frantically speaking to each other while gathering supplies. Several were already crowded around Jack’s crumpled figure.

He feels the knife tucked into his hand, and he slips it into his pocket slowly, before anyone else could notice. 

He zones out at that point while the doctors patched him back up and loaded him into the ambulance. The shine of the hospital shade of white is blinding to his eyes, and he can’t stand to keep them open.

He half-consciously wonders if Jack is still alive.

His head feels like someone is taking a hammer and bashing it in repeatedly. Bile crawls up his throat and the world swims whenever he tries to open his eyes, so he doesn’t. He screws them shut and grimaces at the pounding against his skull.

Someone asked him what happened. It sounds far away and echoic, as if the person wasn’t even there in the first place. Maybe he imagined the voice. He’s not really sure, but he tries to answer anyway. He has enough sense not to say what really went down in the alley, and all he manages to say is “Someone attacked us”, before he promptly passes out once more.

He wakes up later in a hospital. Again.

He’s really starting to hate this place.

This time, however, he wakes up to no one. It’s late, he can tell, with the midnight sky filtering into the room and the only source of light coming from the cracks between the blinds. His wounds feel even worse than they had been. He has a headache more painful than he’s ever had in his life, and any shuffle or movement makes him want to puke. Concussion, he assumes. What else could it be?

Hospital staff float in and out, and so does Mark’s consciousness. Amy comes by in the morning, but Mark isn’t exactly awake enough to hold a conversation. Bob and Wade stop by too, along with other friends and members of Mark’s family, and the people just seem to filter in and out of the room for a while to keep him company, even if he’s only conscious enough for about ten minutes all together.

They’re confused about what happened. Well, he assumes they are. None of them have told him that, or asked about what happened. He’s not really sure what to say, especially since his throat is still screwed up, and his consciousness decided it doesn’t want to be reliable. The concussion made everything worse. Later, when he wakes up again, his friends are excused from the room while police come in to talk to him. They ask him about what happened, just like before. He lies again, just like before.

“Why did you leave the hospital last night?”

Mark frowns, trying to find the words that won’t hurt his throat too much. “I… don’t like hospitals. Wanted some fresh air.” He croaks, each syllable a hurdle to jump.

The police remain patient with him anyway. “When did you find Mr. Sean McLoughlin?”

This was what Mark felt like he should have prepared himself for. He swallows, and the very notion makes his throat feel even worse. “I saw him… getting attacked in an alley. I tried to help him.”

“What happened?” The officer asks, leaning forward curiously. 

“I… I don’t remember much of it.” He admits- which is, for the most part, true. His head was still sore from the gash he got from getting slammed against the wall. He noticed he no longer had the knife- so the police must have taken it from him. He wishes he could have held onto it- but he decides he can still use it for his story. His mouth feels dry. “I managed to take the knife from him. But then he knocked my head against the wall, and that’s all I remember.”

“Did Sean ever realize you were there with him?” 

“He looked unconscious when I got there.” Mark replies. He wonders how true that is. “I don’t know if he knew that I was there or not.”

“Was the attacker the same one who attacked you in your home several days ago?”

Mark hesitates with a shrug, and then settled for a nod. Another truth. He’s about to pass out again.

“What was he wearing?”

“A b-black hoodie.” He spits out his first blatant lie, willing his heart monitor not to pick up. “And a ski mask. Dark denim jeans.”

The police are writing all of this down. “Mr. Fischbach, we will be doing everything we can to find this person.” They say, along with other assurances of him and his safety. He stops paying attention because none of it really matters. Then again, they don’t know that. He wonders how long they’ll be investigating this rabbit trail until they come up empty-handed and give up.

He wonders how long he’d have to be protected until they decide he’s safe to be on his own again. Or any big YouTubers now, for that matter. Especially after two- plus one of their girlfriends- have come up as targets for this “killer”.

When there’s a break in the police’s questions, he asks one he’d been holding on to the entire time. “Is Jack okay?”

The police glance at each other for several seconds. He feels his stomach flop over, and lead crawl into his throat, before one of them turns back to him. “The doctors are doing everything they can for him.” He says, clicking his pen.

Mark doesn’t like that answer at all, but he supposes it’s better than his original thought. “Can I see him?”

“He can’t have any guests right now.” His doctor had walked in, with a blanket draped over her arm. All eyes in the room raise up to her, acknowledging her presence. “But he’s doing better. You should be able to see him soon.”

Some of the tension releases in his shoulders, but he doesn’t feel safe yet. The police bid him farewell, and visitation is over, so that’s it for his day. When darkness spills through his windows, he waits until there doesn’t seem to be any doctors roaming, and he sits up, disconnecting himself from everything.

He knows he shouldn’t do this. Last time it just led to trouble. But he has to see Jack.

He hobbles out of his room with his injured arm held close to him. The world seems to spin with every step, and he has to stop by a trashcan to puke, because his head is messed up, and for a moment, he considers heading back to his room and waiting until he’s allowed to see Jack. Another step and he might just pass out in the hallway, and he’d have to wait for someone to come by and tuck him back into his bed and lecture him about staying there.

But there’s a terror in the back of his head. He knows it’s ridiculous, and knows it’s irrational, but he can’t help but imagine Jack dying before he got the chance to see him.

Then again, how irrational is that? Especially with all the off-hand comments from the hospital staff and police.

Jack could very well be dying.

Just when he decides to keep going, his doctor spots him from down the hallway, and she rushes to his side to bare his weight at his good shoulder. He feels about ready to keel over. “Wait.” He spits out, and the doctor stops, watching him. “I just need to see Jack.” 

“Mr. Fischbach, you’re not in any condition to be walking around right now.” She replies, a bit frustrated and with a tone telling him she was trying to remain patient. “And Sean can’t have visitors.” 

“Please.” Mark whispers, screwing his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to look at her.

“Mr. Fischbach-”

His head droops, with his chin hitting his chest. He lets out an audible gasp for air, his shoulders hunching up, and his eyelids flutter several times. The last image he has of Jack, a stained bloody mess on the ground, is not assuring him. He fears the worst. 

“Please.” He tries again, his voice croaking.

She hesitates, looking up at the empty hallway. It’s shiny and pearly, with every slight shuffle of movement sending a reverberating echo down the endless maze of white. It’s almost eerie. After a moment of silence, the doctor finally gives a soft sigh. “Real quick.” She mutters, wrapping an arm around his back and helping him down the hallway.

He closes his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” She replies. He takes it literally instead of sympathetically.

His feet drag, and the floor feels like jelly, but his doctor shoulders his weight, and he’s so grateful. She doesn’t say much- only glances over her shoulder every few minutes to make sure no one’s coming.

When they end up at Jack’s room, she opens the door for Mark. 

“Five minutes.” She whispers softly, under her breath, helping him over to a visitor’s chair. 

His eyes lift, and he sees Jack, looking very small and very fragile, as though without the comfort of the bed he’d shatter into a million pieces. There’s a steady heart moniter beeping in the room, and to Mark, it was the only sign of life other than the faint rise and fall of his friend’s chest under the blankets. He seems cleaner than he had been in a while, with bandages and gauze covering various parts of his body. His blanket is pulled up to his chest, with his arms free on each side, and his head is tipped back, his eyes shut and his mouth slightly open. The lump in Mark’s throat drops to the bottom of his stomach, making him nauseous all over again.

He takes his time sitting down, his hands trembling while his doctor helps him. When she lets go, she hesitates, looking over him. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea right now.” She says softly, glancing at the door.

Mark shakes his head. “Five minutes is fine.” He replies, looking up at her for the first time that evening. “Thank you.”

She presses her lips together, lost in thought, before releasing a soft exhale and exiting the room. As soon as she closes the door behind her, Jack closes his mouth and his eyes slowly blink open, turning to focus on the door that had just shut to his room.

It was almost startling, but Mark doesn’t really have it in him to react. “You’re awake?”

Jack takes several seconds to move his head back to Mark, his eyes shifting as though he were having trouble focusing. Finally, he mutters a quiet “Yeah”. He still looks awful. Mark wonders how much damage a demon taking over a body inflicts. “Only have been for a couple of minutes, I think.” He blinks several times, looking back towards the darker end of the room.

An uneasy silence crosses over them, but it’s broken when Mark suddenly breaks composure, leaning forward and resting his head in his trembling hands. Jack’s face whirls slowly back around to where he sits, eyes wide with surprise. 

“I thought you were dead.” Mark whispers through his broken voice, his shaky breaths audible with each gasp for air. He’s shaking violently. “There was, there was so much blood, I thought for sure. I thought for sure you were gone, I thought…” His injured throat fails him, leaving him wheezing a bit and wiping his nose with his arm.

Jack frowns, looking down at the blankets. He looks a bit sheepish, but Mark decides not to address it. “Mark… what happened?”

Mark looks up at him with tear-filled eyes. “You… you weren’t aware?”

He shakes his head. “Not until the end. Around when you had hit your head.”

He sits up a bit, wiping at his eyes, and then explains everything. About Dark- about the fight- about the entire situation. At the end, he shrugs to himself and looks away again. “I’m not really sure what happened to them. Dark told me at a certain time, they vanish. I think we managed to push them out of our heads at the right time. I think they’re gone." 

It’s Jack’s turn for a shuddering breath, his hands gripping the blankets. “For good?”

Mark nods slowly, and it sinks in for both of them. “For good.”

Jack’s relief is contagious. He closes his eyes, and takes a couple small, deep breaths. His hunched shoulders relieve themselves, and his pale skin shows a little color. Mark is waiting for him to say something. But eventually, he realizes that Jack was unconscious once more. It makes him wonder how long he’d been fighting to stay awake just to talk to Mark for a few short minutes. 

He feels a pang of worry, but the heart monitor in the background keeps him steady.

“Mr. Fischbach.” A voice startles him a few minutes later, and the doctor peeks into the room. He turns his gaze away from his friend, looking up at her with sad eyes. “It’s time to head back to your room.”

He turns back to his friend and frowns. There was so much more he wanted to talk about, but Jack needed to rest. And so did Mark. Rising from his chair and fighting the dizziness that follows, he exits the room with his doctor assisting him, his heart feeling somewhat lighter.

“Are you okay?” His doctor asks him as he studies the floor beneath his steps.

“Yes.” He says, but he’s not quite sure.

\------------------------------

Mark is asleep in his own bed days later when Jack is officially allowed to have visitors. When he wakes up, he finds his doctor hovering around, just waiting for him to stir so she could tell him he could go on over. With help, and attachments to his body that he has to haul on a rolling rack, he slowly makes his way down the hallway. 

He doesn’t really remember the past few days. He figures he’s been unconscious for most of it. But now, he’s surprised to find that he’s feeling much better, and as he starts making his way down the hall, he doesn’t get the immediate urge to toss his lunch.

The door opens a bit slowly when he tries to nudge it, but his doctor pushes it the rest of the way open, using her arm to brace it open while he shuffles inside, his gaze watching his feet to steady himself.

Slowly, surely, he looks up. Several pairs of eyes all turn to look at him. Wade is the first face his eyes fall on, and he’s in the middle of laughter, followed by the last bits of chuckles from Bob and Jack. The two friends that aren’t in the hospital bed both rise and take turns giving Mark a heart-felt, yet slightly awkward, hug. The IV’s got in the way, and his doctor was still hovering, trying to get him into the room completely.

When he finally manages to settle himself in the room, standing on the other side of Jack’s bed, the doctor excuses herself with a small smile and a click of the door. Jack’s smiling- he looks so much better- and he gives a small excited wave to acknowledge Mark’s presence.

 “How long have you guys been here?” Mark asks Bob and Wade as he sits down, ignoring the dull ache in the back of his head from the sudden burst of commotion.

“About two hours.” Bob looks at his watch. They both seem to be smiling, as though they had been talking about something funny before Mark walked in. “Took you forever to wake up, man.”

“Not my fault I’m concussed.” Mark retorts, leaning forward on his knees. He feels a bit wobbly.

It gets quiet, then, and the excitement and thrill dies a bit. The more he looks over Jack, the more he can see the healing and life in his eyes. He still looks very tired, but he seems to have more breath to him. Mark thinks about the last time he had seen him- looking practically dead already- and seeing him now just washes most of his worries away. “How’re you feeling, Mark?” He asks, his voice rough and full of ache, but not absent of joy. 

“Awful.” He admits with a smile. “How about yourself?”

“Stab wounds are… not as fun as you’d think.” 

“Tell me about it.”

They chuckle a bit, and Wade and Bob are trying not to look too concerned that they’re making light of literal stab wounds. Jack frowns then, looking down at his blankets and blinking a couple times. Before any of them could start another topic, he looks back up. “We were just talking about you, actually.”

“Oh really? Good things I hope.”

“You’d hope.” Jack sends him a sarcastic smile, and Mark rolls his eyes.

 Jack swivels his gaze back around to Bob. “Oh, I remember what I meant to ask- who all knows about everything? About me being okay and all.”

“I haven’t told much of anyone outside of your basic circle of friends and family.” Bob says thoughtfully, tapping his fingers together. “I didn’t want to do a play by play on social media of the past few days, either, because both of your conditions have been…” He glances down at his feet. “Pretty on and off. But I did post on twitter that you were found, and that there’d be details later.”

 _A few days?_ That’s longer than Mark had thought it had been. And then the second part processed. _On and off?_

He’s about to ask Bob to elaborate, but then decides against it. He doesn’t think he wants to know. 

Jack nods quietly, looking down at his blankets. There’s a moment where he seems to think, juggling words around his head, before he finally glances up at the three of them, eyes full of something Mark can’t identify.

He can tell Bob and Wade have questions. But they’d have to find another time to answer them.

“Would you guys help me film a video?” Jack asks.

Mark smiles. “Of course, man. Pass me your phone.” 

\------------------------------

It’s evening by the time Mark’s done on his laptop. He had offered to edit Jack’s vlog, using his good arm to do everything which, he now realizes, wasn’t as easy as it seemed. It had all four of them in it, with Jack taking the lead and talking to his fans about how he and Mark have been doing, what had happened (lies of course, but there were no other options), and when he’d be up and about again. At first, Jack had planned on being in the center shot alone, but halfway through his intro he stopped and asked for the others to be in frame with him. Mark could tell the company and extra banter in the video made him more comfortable.

When he finally manages to upload it (he’s never editing one-handed again), he shuts the laptop and slides it onto the table next to him. With a hefty sigh, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and rolls onto his feet, grabbing the bed railing to steady himself. Visitation is over, but he didn’t really feel like laying down anymore, so he thought he’d stop by Jack’s room to let him know the video was up.

Part of him expected Jack to be sleeping by the time he got there. It had been a very eventful day full of many, many people crowding around Jack and several others skype calling with him to see him. He had been doing his best to say enthusiastic and energetic, Mark knew, but there was only so much he could manage considering how much pain he’s been in. Mark’s been getting his fair share as well with the family and friends surrounding him, but he felt too fidgety now that they all left.

So, he makes his way over. Instead of sleeping, though, Jack is found sitting near his window looking outside into the night sky. He’s a little surprised to see him awake- let alone out of bed.

“Knock knock.” He says aloud through the cracked door while rasping his knuckles against the frame. Jack doesn’t turn around. “…You okay?”

He doesn’t say anything. His head is leaning against the glass, with his eyes watching the people walking on the sidewalks several stories below. The street lamps only illuminate so far, and the light doesn’t seem to reach the floor their on. It makes the atmosphere look very dark. Mark shuts the door behind him with a soft click, and then hauls a visitor’s chair over to the window to sit with him. It’s legs grind against the floor unnecessarily, making both of them wince until he stops. He mimics Jack’s posture, leaning his head against the glass, and together they sit in comfortable silence for a bit.

“Just got the video uploaded.” Mark says softly, after a few moments.

Jack hums in response, glancing up at him. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Mark replies, holding his injured arm close to his side. He hadn’t really been comfortable moving it lately, and his good arm comes around to hold it securely. “How you feeling?”

Jack doesn’t respond for a second. It’s weird- especially after the smiles and enthusiasm he shared with everyone all day. He looks defeated. Eventually, he releases a soft sigh, his breath creating fog on the glass, and he turns away. “I miss Signe.”

 _Oh, Jack._ Mark feels a wave of sadness wash over him. He stops leaning against the window and opens up his good arm, reaching out to his friend. “C’mere.” He says softly, and Jack melts into his hug. Mark holds him securely around the back, and he has an odd sense of déjà vu to the first time Jack had showed up at his house after going missing. Except this time, Jack wasn’t in hysterics, sick, and suffering from shock. This time, he was just so tired.

He can feel Jack’s shoulder blades rise and fall with each deep breath. Mark rubs small circles into his back. After a moment, Jack reaches up and wraps his own arm around Mark, hiding his face in his friend’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.” He says, muffled by Mark’s hospital gown.

Mark opens his eyes. “Why are you sorry?” He asks to the empty air.

“If I had just… minded my own business when everything happened… I wouldn’t have… I wouldn’t have been there for Anti to hurt you. You wouldn’t have been involved. And I-”

“Hey.” Mark pulls away from the hug, keeping his hand on Jack’s shoulder. His friend’s eyes are red, but he looks up at him despite this. They’re full of exhaustion. “Don’t do that. Anti was the one who did all this, not you. Just like Dark used me to hurt you. You have no reason to blame yourself for any of this. I’m glad you trusted me enough to come to me.”

Jack presses his lips together in a thin line. “I never would have forgiven myself if you didn’t make it." 

“I’m here. I’m alive. These injuries happened because of Anti and Dark- not you.” There’s silence between them, and Mark takes it as his cue to hug him again. So he does. This time, Jack doesn’t hide his face in Mark’s shoulder, and instead turns his head to the side, his eyes looking out the window. They sit like this for a bit.

“Does your head still hurt?” Jack asks quietly, changing the subject.

“It’s getting better. How’s your forearm?”

“Stings.”

“Sorry.”

“Now you’re doing it.” That earns a small chuckle out of Jack, and Mark feels a small moment of relief to hear the release in tension.

“It’s a different sorry.” He says softly, rocking a bit. “I know things suck right now.”

There’s another pause. The silence seems to be doing them well, but Mark knows there are some things he needs to say. “I’m so sorry about Signe, Jack.”

Jack is still for a second. Then, he hides his face in Mark’s shoulder again. But he doesn’t tremble. He only takes a deep breath, and holds it for several seconds before exhaling against the fabric of Mark’s gown.

“Things will get better.” Mark promises, turning to hide his own face in Jack’s shoulder as a form of comfort and vulnerability. “It will.”

“…Thank you, Mark.” Jack whispers. It’s so breathy that Mark almost misses it.

Mark hums softly in acknowledgement, and the two sit like this for several long minutes. When Jack’s breaths come slower and deeper, he finds that his friend had fallen fast asleep in his arms. He rocks a bit, the motion mostly to comfort himself, before he closes his eyes and remains as still as possible to keep his friend from waking up.

He replies, “Thank you, Jack” without really knowing why. But for the first time in a very long time, everything is okay.

Mark feels himself relax.

Everything is okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for all of your support!! It really meant a lot to me, and working on this story has been a really fun thing to do in my free time. I really enjoyed writing it. Until next time~


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